


Omphalos

by zuzeca



Series: The Pillars of the Temple [4]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, M/M, Multi, Scars, Spark Sex, Sticky Sex, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 13:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/940745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zuzeca/pseuds/zuzeca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New players enter the scene, secrets are revealed, loves and loyalties are tested. Tidings of a looming threat force Megatron to reexamine the direction of his destiny, and the line between Orion Pax and Optimus Prime.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omphalos

**Author's Note:**

> A direct sequel to [I Sing the Body Symmetric](http://archiveofourown.org/works/934191) which bridges the gap between it and a yet-unposted sequel, "Two Powers in Heaven". For the curious, an “omphalos” refers to a stone artifact which allows communication with the gods. Enjoy. :)

_“Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.” - Kahlil Gilbran_

-

The clang of metal and a soft curse started Trencher from stasis. Onlining his visors, he glanced towards the edge of the berth, where Drop-Tank was scooping up a datapad from the floor, running his fingers across the surface to check for cracks. He paused, sheepish, under Trencher’s stare.

“Trying to leave you a note,” Drop-Tank grumbled. “Got a mission in a breem and I didn’t want to wake you.”

Trencher refrained from pointing out that Drop-Tank simply could have transmitted the message; the poor glitch probably still thought written notes were romantic or some such slag, “Well I’m awake now.” He stretched and sat up, “Guard duty at one of the mines?”

Drop-Tank shook his head, “Retrieval. A bunch of us are going with Knockout and Breakdown for backup.”

Resigned worry flickered through his spark, “Be careful.”

Drop-Tank’s visor brightened and he leaned in close, his energy field a warm fuzz of affection against Trencher’s own, “Don’t worry, I’m always careful.”

He offlined his visors, indulging in the heat and prickle as their fields meshed, before shoving lightly against Drop-Tank’s chassis, “Go on, get going. I don’t want that insufferable medic drilling holes in your armor because you’re late.” 

He could hear the smile in Drop-Tank’s tone, “Of course.” A whoosh of air as the door slid open and then silence; his field left straining out into the emptiness.

“You really are hopeless,” commented Sandblaster from the other berth.

“Oh cram a circuitboard in it,” he snapped, flopping back down. Snagging the datapad from where Drop-Tank had left it, he scanned over the glowing glyphs. Drop-Tank might be a romantic fool, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a look at what he’d written.

And that was when he noticed it.

_Frag it all, the slagger has better handwriting than I do._

 

If he’d not seen Optimus douse Unicron’s spark with his own optics, Megatron would almost believe that dark energon still flowed through him. The vigor and the spiking energy were the same, but the lightness of spark, a tension that he only noticed in its absence, was entirely new.

Uneasy and bewildered at first, Orion had settled in beautifully over the past cycles. The officers still watched him, wary, but the crew at large had taken to him and as he relaxed, Megatron began to catch glimpses of the resurrection of the Orion-that-was: serious, but possessed of a gentle, open, affectionate nature. 

An Orion who was still very much in love.

He’d forgotten how different Orion Pax was from Optimus Prime. He had forgotten what it was like to be loved. 

He meant to hold himself aloof. It wouldn’t do to demonstrate weakness before the crew. But he’d been unprepared for the reemergence of the archivist he’d once known, a young mech bright with energy and ideals. Who would stand in utter propriety at his shoulder even as his energy field danced across his own in a teasing flicker of seduction. A seduction to which he found himself succumbing far too often; in the berthroom, in dark corridors of the _Nemesis_ , even one memorable encounter in a work station, when he’d hiked him up against the wall in memory of their first time, a frenzied coupling in the barracks of the Kaon arena, in a room long since turned to dust. 

And yet, as always, when their passion had cooled, doubts crowded in, reminding him of what he had seen, nibbling like scraplets at his processor.

Could he have been mistaken in the direction of his revolution, in his demands to be named Prime? He trusted no other to bring his dream of a just and equal Cybertron to fruition, but before he met Orion he had never looked at the Prime title as a means of accomplishing his goals. The title itself connoted the slavery of the caste system, and a Prime without the Matrix was no more than any other elected leader; he had no real reason to demand it specifically.

_And why the vision? It brought me, brought all of us to this far-flung world, born of Unicron. And yet the vision itself has never come to pass._

_What am I missing?_

He’d interpreted it as a blessing, a sign of the righteousness of his cause and a glimpse of the future. But why not let him see the vision in its entirety? If he’d seen Orion reshaped at his side would he perhaps have chosen differently? Seen Optimus’s ascension as an opportunity rather than a hindrance?

_If the vision did truly stem from a divine source, how can I begin to parse its intentions?_

He looked towards his companion, languid on the berth beside him.

_Perhaps…perhaps there is a way._

Processor roiling, he reached out and ran his claws along the seam of Orion’s chassis, “May I?”

Orion glanced at him, startled. No wonder, it was the rare occasion that he conceded to Orion’s often wordless requests for this, never had he initiated it. But Orion didn’t insult him by inquiring after his certainty, or even his motives; he merely parted his plating in a quickness of response that spoke volumes of the trust that had been between them, which was between them once more.

At the sight of the pulsing light, uncertainty flooded him. Despite his earlier brush with Orion’s spark, this was unknown territory. Generally he did not subscribe to the ramblings of superstition that permeated their culture but he still heard them, and they crowded in now, whispers of the Matrix, of the nature of the body of a Prime. A conduit to Primus, some said. 

War was not the only reason he had never sparkmerged with Optimus Prime. 

Angry at his own hesitation, he bared his spark, gripped Orion’s shoulder guards and drew them together.

Darkness.

Solid ground beneath him; a flicker of light in the distance and the steady ponderous ringing of metal struck to metal. He moved forward, into the dim halo.

“I admit,” he said. “I’d sooner expected to find that sniveling coward Zeta here.”

Sparks flew up from heated metal, swirling in the air before being drawn into the glowing furnace of the creature’s body. Blank, blazing eyes turned in his direction. “Despite my shifting allegiances and my brethren’s rather fervent protests to the contrary, I _am_ spawned of Primus.”

“Evidently.”

The Fallen flipped the piece of metal upon which he was working and struck it with a rounded hammer. “Why are you here, Name-Thief?”

“Thief no longer; I have built my own reputation, far greater than even you could hope to achieve.”

“So you say. And yet you are here.”

“I…I have become unsure of my path of late.” He spread his hands, staring down at his claws, which cast long shadows in the light from the Fallen’s body. “Before it seemed so clear, but with Unicron gone, with Cybertron dark and Orion…I do not know what to make of Orion.”

“You realize his current state is not immutable, that the Prime merely slumbers.”

A small pain lanced across his spark. “I know it.”

The Fallen paused in his work. Venting a cloud of ash and smoke, he turned his gaze to Megatron. “In many ways, it is far easier for the others. Even Vector can withdraw from the timestream if it becomes too much for him. But the chaotic energy of the cosmos doesn’t vanish. Nor can it be controlled indefinitely. And in the end, it is still an aspect of creation. A necessary aspect.”

Pausing, he turned to a nearby cask, brimming with dark liquid, which Megatron was certain had not been present before. Lifting the glowing bit of metal upon which he worked, the Fallen plunged it into the cask. Steam roiled, boiling solvent spat and hissed and he lifted it to show Megatron, “And it may be tempered.”

It was a fragment of one of Optimus’s blades.

 

Alpha Trion painstakingly marked another set of glyphs into the surface of his data booklet, trying to ignore the muffled moaning and shrieks of claws on the metal of the walls. “If you do not cease that infernal racket,” he said, “I will not hesitate to pitch you out on your skidplate and let the Terrorcons have you.”

Across the Hall, the rapid click-clack of Shockwave’s typing continued unabated, “My apologies for having successfully upgraded to a less antiquated form of technology.”

“Watch it, scraplet. I may be old, but I can still pound you into slag. How are those computer models for your ‘Anti-Terrorcon Tech’ coming? Models which I might add _would not be necessary_ if your glitched commander hadn’t pitched a whole chunk of dark energon through the space bridge.”

“Lord Megatron would not implement a plan that constituted a threat to his forces.”

“How about I toss you outside and you can see how well your faction symbol holds them off?”

“I still believe it would be possible to divert their attention from live Cybertronians. If you would but let me perform some practical experiments—”

“You are not bringing one of those _things_ in here.”

Shockwave huffed in frustration and sagged in his chair, “Then I have reached the end of my theoretical investigative capabilities.”

“Fine, go entertain yourself in the stacks or something. Maybe you’ll soak up a bit of culture.”

“I have no use for drama or literature, and no interest in census registries,” Shockwave replied, leaning back in his chair and regarding the open ceiling of the Hall idly. “If you are concerned with my edification, I don’t suppose that I might inquire exactly why the Iaconian Hall of Records was built with blastproof walls and integrated weaponry?”

“No you may not. What do I look like, a reference librarian?”

“This is ridiculous,” Shockwave rose from his seat and paced across the open floor. “Despite the illogic of it, self-deactivation is beginning to seem quite appealing when faced with an indeterminate amount of time locked within these walls with nothing but the screams of undead Cybertronians and the ramblings of an old, lunatic _Autobot_ —”

“Wait,” Alpha Trion held up a hand. “What did you say?”

“Old, lunatic Autobot?”

“Of course not, you glitch,” Alpha Trion cocked his head. “The noise, the screaming.”

Shockwave started, “It stopped.”

Subspacing his Quill and databook, Alpha Trion rose from his desk and strode across the room, transmitting the codes to the door’s locking mechanism as he did so. Once he might have jacked in directly to accomplish the task, but despite Shockwave’s taunts, he _was_ capable of utilizing newer technology.

The door slid open at his approach and they peered out into the wreckage of Iacon.

“Primus,” murmured Shockwave.

The streets were thick with the remains of Terrorcons, their bodies no longer glowing with the power of dark energon. Yet as they watched, the empty bodies disintegrated, plating dissolving into dust, trickles of energon seeping out to form streams which flowed through the streets, dripping down into cracks, as though they were being drawn into the heart of the planet. 

Hesitant, Trion pressed his hand to his chest, felt the strange flare of his spark. Despite their close connection, it wasn’t always accurate, but this time…

He _knew_.

“The Core,” he murmured. “It’s back online.”

 

Megatron stared at the shard, tracing the dark, empty energon channels, the edge where he had broken it with his own hands, no longer jagged, but smoothed, ready to be repaired, “Orion has asked me no questions.”

The Fallen laid the fragment back upon the forge, “I cannot divine the intentions of Optimus Prime, but as for Orion, perhaps he fears the answers.”

“What is the Matrix?”

“If you are asking what it means for a Prime to bear the Matrix within them, I have no answer. I have never carried it, and even now Prima has never been very forthcoming. But as to the nature of the Matrix itself…” The Fallen made a noncommittal gesture, “It is an artifact of creation, of life. That was how it could respond to and conquer Unicron, a creature of death and destruction.”

An answer that told him no more or less than he already knew. Annoyance flared, but he set it aside in favor of another question which plagued him.

“The old records,” Megatron said. “I could access little in the way of the specifics, but they said…that it was a duty of a Lord High Protector to make decisions, when his Prime could not.”

“Well there you have it.” The Fallen’s empty, blazing optics locked with his own, “Then I guess only two questions remain, Name-Thief. Will you recognize the decision when it arises? And will you choose the correct path?”

The illusory ground dropped out beneath him and he fell.

His optics rebooted and he found himself flat on his back, Orion stretched out beside him, a meditative look on his face. 

Again he braced for inquiries, but Orion only smiled and murmured, “Thank you.” 

He nodded, squelching the suspicious question which bubbled to the surface of his processor: _What did you see?_

A polite but insistent ping in his communication systems: Soundwave. He rose from the berth, “Rest if you wish, I am needed on the bridge.”

 

The bridge was abuzz with activity, Eradicons hurrying about. “Soundwave, report.”

The data packet was concise and immediate. A transmission from Cybertron. He stepped up the console as an image shimmered into view, pale and buzzed with static.

“Shockwave, I trust that you would not be wasting energon on this unless it was important?”

The other mech saluted him, “No, Lord Megatron. I bring unprecedented news; the Core is back online and producing once more.”

He quelled his shock before it could show on his face, “Are you certain?”

Shockwave actually hesitated, “My lord…”

A new voice rang out, “He’s not certain, but I am.”

His sensor net prickled with familiarity, “Alpha Trion. And here I thought you’d long since turned to rust.”

“Megatron,” it was at once an acknowledgement and a curse.

“So Shockwave, are you consorting with Autobots now?”

The mech straightened, “No, my lord! I only—”

“Reprimand your underlings later, Megatron,” Trion broke in again, forcing his way in front of the screen. “We have bigger problems than your petty conquest. I need to contact Optimus.”

Anger curled in him at the insolent tone, “Oh? And what makes you think that I will consent to be your personal switchboard? Or that I even know Optimus Prime’s current location?”

“Don’t play the fool, Megatron. I know you always keep tabs on him. And as for a switchboard, your science lackey has the only currently functional subspace communicator in Iacon.”

“How tragic. I still fail to see why I should assist you.”

Alpha Trion fixed him with a direct stare, the gaze strangely reminiscent of the Fallen’s, “You did your best to scour this planet of life, Megatron, but if you do not help me, you will not even have the bones of Cybertron to rule over. The Core has reawakened, and there are others who will have felt its call. Others who will take this opportunity to solidify their own power, who will not hesitate to consume this planet utterly.”

“You speak of Liege Maximo.”

“I speak of the Swarm.”

A flicker of unease, “I do not subscribe to obscure myths told by frightened, superstitious creatures.”

“Make no mistake, Megatron,” Trion snapped. “The Swarm is very real. And it is more than capable of wiping Cybertron from existence.”

Something nagged at the back of his processor, “Do you have a more specific timetable? When did the Core reactivate?”

Shockwave attempted to shove back in front of the screen, “Approximately two decacycles ago, Lord Megatron.”

When Prime had snuffed Unicron’s spark; it couldn’t be coincidence.

Alpha Trion elbowed Shockwave out of the way. “We need the power of a Prime, the power of the Matrix, if there’s going to be any hope of stopping Maximo. I’ve been unable to raise Prime’s last known team on any of the frequencies I possess. You must have some way to patch me through to Optimus.”

He paused, debating the wisdom of offering Trion any more information, “It is…not so simple. Optimus is currently beyond contact.”

Confusion flickered across Alpha Trion’s face, followed by dawning horror, “You didn’t?”

“Optimus still functions. He is even aboard my ship, but the Matrix has deactivated. He believes himself to be Orion Pax once more.”

Trion offlined his optics briefly, his face drawn, “What does he remember?”

“Our initial association and his apprenticeship under you. He has no recollection of the Council, or anything after.”

Trion shook his head, “Then we are lost.”

Silence fell. Megatron turned the information over in his processor. Perhaps…

“Do you know of any way that the Matrix might be brought back online?”

“Why? So you may attempt to claim it, as you have always desired?”

“Do not presume to know my motives, Trion. Answer the question.”

Trion frowned, “Contact with the Core perhaps, with Vector Sigma. It might restore him. Last I know of, Optimus carried the Key with him. Was it on him anywhere?”

“No.” He’d searched Orion himself when he came aboard. Likely Optimus had passed the artifact to one of his soldiers, to keep it beyond his reach.

_Clever, Prime, you must have suspected what would happen._

“Then without the Key, it is doubtful that Optimus Prime can be brought back.”

“If it could be obtained? If Orion could be brought to Cybertron?”

Trion narrowed his optics, “And will you do this, Megatron? After the violence of your revolution, the lust with which you have pursued Optimus’s deactivation, am I to believe that you will resurrect your oldest enemy?”

Megatron’s engine growled, “My revolution was just, and Orion supported it, as you well know. I do not regret scouring Cybertron of those of who subjugated its citizens, who luxuriated in power while common mechs lived and died for their sport. But I believe I may have…misinterpreted a few things.”

The concession burned like acid.

Alpha Trion stared at him, incredulous, before sagging. “You know what, Megatron? I don’t believe I care what has brought about this little change of spark, as long as the end result is Optimus’s return. Scrap, afterwards you and he can beat each other to slag as long as you like. At least there’ll still be a Cybertron for you to do it on.”

“Your gratitude is overwhelming.”

“Do you have a time frame for when you can transport back?”

A ping from Soundwave and the necessary information popped into his processor, “The space bridge should be operational approximately ten solar cycles from now, provided we can acquire the necessary power source.”

Trion rubbed a hand over his face, “It will have to be soon enough. At least Maximo has equally far to travel.” He straightened, gaze fixing on Megatron. “I want to speak to Orion.”

Automatic denial flared, “Why?”

“Because he is still my apprentice. And because I need to see if anything of what made him Optimus Prime remains.”

Sullen anger roiled within him, tempered with not a little despair, “Very well. Work your alchemy upon him if you wish. But I need to speak with him first.” He turned from the console, “Soundwave will patch you through when we are finished.”

“So you can fill his processor with lies?”

“No,” he paused at the door of the control room. “The time for deception is over.”

_The truth will prove far more destructive._

 

In all the vorns of his function, Megatron had never flinched from a battle. But now he hesitated at the door to his quarters, reluctant to face the bot within.

He had no fear of sparking memories in that blank processor, Optimus springing to sudden, violent life and running him through with one of his blades. But Orion, sweet, gentle Orion, who had been pupil and friend and lover, whom he’d never thought to see again. How could he sever their connection, so newly reestablished?

_I should be satisfied that fate has handed me the opportunity to wreak such pain upon the one who betrayed me._

_But I…_

Concentrating on the safety of anger, he disengaged the locking codes on the door.

Orion perched on the edge of the berth, one of the datapads Megatron had given him to decode in hand. He glanced up and smiled, “Everything alright?”

Megatron didn’t answer, merely tugged a spare seat from its place and set it up across from the berth. Sinking down into it, he regarded Orion for a few moments. He hadn’t thought to question it at first, but for the brilliant young archivist he had known, who had chafed at the restrictions imposed on him, _“Over and over, Megatronus, ‘Collect, categorize, but never interpret’, like being told to go through life with your optics offline…”_ to have blithely accepted his flimsy explanations was unheard of.

“You have asked me no questions.”

A flicker—was it fear?—and the smile took on a hint of uncertainty, “What do you mean? What questions should I be asking you?”

_Perhaps the Fallen was right._

“What did I tell you, when I brought you back to the ship?”

“You told me we were in exile on another world, that Cybertron had been rendered uninhabitable by war with the Autobots, a faction that opposed the caste revolution. You said I had been their prisoner, recently rescued,” Orion said, puzzled. “Was that not the truth?”

“Not entirely, Orion. You were not an Autobot prisoner. You were an Autobot.”

Orion’s optics widened, “What?”

“Not merely an Autobot, their leader: Optimus Prime.”

Orion started at the term, “Prime? That’s impossible, there hasn’t been a true Prime in ages, and Sentinel—”

“Sentinel was deactivated. The Council tried to name you Prime when we went before them. We parted ways and after Sentinel’s death you took up the mantle of the Matrix, to lead the battle against my revolution.”

A glimmer of comprehension and horror, “Parted ways? You mean _we_ were at war?”

“It is true.”

Orion shook his head, “You’re mad. I’m a _data clerk_. I barely know how to fight, let alone lead an army. And fight you? I can’t believe I would have done that.”

Disbelief, he’d expected it. Reaching out, he grasped Orion’s hand and tugged free the datapad he still clutched. Orion didn’t fight as Megatron guided him to the shoulder of his cannon arm and pressed their fingers in between the plates of his armor, seeking out a thick, twisted scar on his protoform.

“Sherma Bridge, one of the first great battles of the war. You cost me an arm that day, you and your energon blades. I threw you off the bridge in recompense.”

Releasing Orion, he touched the other bot’s chin, claws stroking across old, pale welding lines, “Hell’s Point, I shattered your face and you dropped a city block on me with the Tremorcon’s geo-scoop. I spent half a vorn trapped in alt mode.”

Bit by bit he took Orion through their shared history; an age of war mapped out on their bodies. When he at last fell silent Orion was rigid in his seat, a fine trembling rippling across his body and rattling the plates of his armor.

He pressed on; merciless. “The planet we are currently orbiting was formed from the offline body of Unicron. A planetary alignment roused him from stasis and threatened to rend this planet asunder. We allied to defeat him, and to do so you ultimately gave up the Matrix, and with it your memories of the war.”

Orion remained silent.

“Cybertron is in recovery, the Core online and producing energon once more. I suspect it may be connected to Unicron’s destruction. But another threat looms, and the power of a Prime is required to combat it.”

“And I am no longer a Prime,” Orion’s voice was flat.

“You will be once more,” Megatron couldn’t erase the bitterness from his voice. “We must return to Cyberton.”

Orion buried his face in his hands. “I…I need some time to process this.”

He rose, “I will you leave you to your thoughts. Soundwave will be by later; there is a communication for you.”

Orion gave him a distracted nod and he turned to exit, deliberately crushing the one question he wanted to ask back down into the depths of his spark. It was a question he had never asked of Optimus, never cared to know, but now he found himself wondering at the answer.

_Do you hate me?_

 

His slagging tool kit was missing.

Trencher tried to poach Sandblaster’s, but the other mech had taken it with him when he’d left to refuel. Rummaging among the shelves produced nothing but spare datapads and a flyer maintenance kit that Drop-Tank had quietly left behind at one point.

He very carefully ignored the implications of the object as he shoved it aside.

_Going to be late for my shift, slag it, and the drills in Mine Gamma are overdue for a tune-up as is. Where in the frag—?_

A glint of metal caught his optic, peeking from beneath the berth. 

Lowering himself to the ground, he probed in the darkness, angling his head awkwardly to compensate for his compromised visual field.

Success! He yanked the small kit out and tucked it away into one of his leg compartments. Racing out into the corridor, he ran straight into Sandblaster. He flicked out a non-verbal see-you-later, but before he could escape, Sandblaster snagged him by the wrist.

“Trencher, wait.”

Annoyed, he tried to reclaim his hand, “I’m running late, what’s so slagging important?”

Sandblaster hesitated, “It’s Drop-Tank.”

His systems stalled.

“Best I can gather, the Autobots showed up during the retrieval mission. He’s alive, but he got blasted pretty bad. Traction managed to drag him back to repair bay.”

His processor swam. Rebooting his vocalizer several times, he forced out the first words that came to mind, “I have to get to work.”

Sorrow buzzed through Sandblaster’s energy field, “It’s already taken care of. Dozer’s covering your shift.”

“Did we lose anyone?”

Sandblaster vocalized a mournful note of remembrance, “Tiltwing.”

Relief surged in the numb wake left by fear, followed by a wash of self-loathing that he hadn’t known Tiltwing. Not quite nameless, but a gentler cut, “I have to go…to go somewhere.”

“Trencher—”

He tore away and stalked down the hall, ignoring the last empathetic glimmer in Sandblaster’s field before they broke contact.

 

One mercy that came with occupying the top of the chain of command was that if you wished to stand silent on the bridge for cycles, you were rarely questioned.

Megatron stared at the external visual feed, watching as clouds of atmospheric vapor swept across the hull of the _Nemesis_. More than any other single feature, the billowing masses never let him forget he was on an alien world. Even the brightness of this planet’s star was not so foreign as its dense mists.

“Lord Megatron?”

He didn’t turn, “What is it, Breakdown?”

“We successfully retrieved the power source, with minimal casualties. The final stages of bridge construction are underway, but the crew picked up something on the scanners.”

“Oh?”

“A vessel, Autobot as far as they can tell. Signal identified it as the _Skyfire_.”

“Grimlock.”

“Should we send out a welcoming party?”

_Either he’s possessed of more battle lust than sense or he’s never faced Grimlock and his team before._ “No,” he replied, hiding his amusement at Breakdown’s eagerness. “For now, leave them. Step up construction on the bridge.”

“Yes, Lord Megatron,” the barest edge of annoyance in the tone.

“You’re dismissed.” 

He listened to the scrape and scuff of Breakdown’s feet as the other bot exited. Offlining his optics, he allowed an image file of the young gladiator as he’d last seen him to rise to the surface of his processor. Scuffed with the soot of combat, blade and optics alight with battle fire, a vision of bloodlust that would make any Decepticon proud. A pity the rebellious bot had never agreed to join his ranks.

_Why are you here, Grimlock?_

Regardless, the former gladiator’s presence shifted the options available to him; for good or ill it was too soon to tell. Engaging his battle computer, he added Grimlock’s stats to the active variables and began to run scenarios.

 

Orion sat in the darkness of the berthroom for a long time before the flicker of a foreign yet familiar energy field roused him.

Soundwave.

“Come in,” his voice sounded flat and strange in the still air.

The door hissed open and the other bot stepped inside.

“Megatron said there was a communication for me?”

Soundwave tilted his head, regarding Orion, before seating himself in the chair Megatron had vacated. He folded his hands in his lap, the long spindles of his fingers overlapping, but the flat screen of his face remained blank and silent, waiting.

“I suppose you knew all along,” Orion couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “You and everyone else.”

A dip of assent.

“I…I still can’t believe that I fought against Megatron. I _saw_ the horrors in the gladiator pits, in the mines, I knew what was at stake.” Grief welled in him, “We both wanted the same thing.” 

Another nod.

He smiled sadly, “But we had different ways of trying to get it, didn’t we?”

Again Soundwave nodded.

An insidious thought crept in, blooming from images of the horrific scars on Megatron’s body and his own, “Did I ever? To you?” He couldn’t begin to verbalize it.

A brief hesitation before Soundwave reached for his hand. Directing it to the scaled plates of his abdomen, he pressed Orion’s fingers against the thick, hidden ridge of a scar.

He bowed his head, “Forgive me.”

A flicker against his energy field, a complex tangle of emotion: an acknowledgement of the pain as merely physical and long ended, a dismissal of his guilt and a gladiator’s fierce joy at encountering a worthy opponent. And beneath it all, the hesitant warm buzz of happiness at a comrade returned.

His spark swelled within him and he folded their fingers together, marveling at the difference from the Soundwave he’d known, blunt digits transformed to long slender tools, “Thank you.”

Soundwave’s fingers squeezed against his own, a warrior’s strength in their grip still.

“I guess I made a pretty tough Prime, eh? To take you on?”

A flash of indulgent amusement fizzed through their combined fields.

Smiling, he tried to gather his scattered processor, “You had a communication for me?”

A click and a low, demanding voice echoed through the berthroom, “I want to speak to Orion.”

He jerked, startled, “Alpha Trion?”

A nod.

Orion cycled his vents. He knew objectively that Cybertron had been dark for millennia, its population scattered to the stars, but objective knowledge clashed with the feeling that he’d just left the Hall a short time ago.

He even remembered the project he’d been working on; filing census records for Kaon.

“Patch me through.”

The slight hiss of static and then, “Orion?”

After the sense of wrongness that had dogged him since his awakening, the voice was a welcome wash of familiarity. He could almost hear it echoing across the central room of the Hall, rebuking him in mock irritation about coming in late after spending another offshift cycle with Megatron.

“Trion.”

“Orion, are you alright?”

He laughed, his voice shaking the barest bit, “That’s an excellent question.”

“Have you been harmed in any way?”

“Physically, I’m fine. Otherwise…I’m not sure, Trion. How would you respond if you were told you’d lost hundreds of megavorns of your life? And that you’d spent them fighting a war against your lover?”

“Oh, Orion…”

“I still can’t really believe it,” the words spilled from his vocalizer in a rush. “ _Optimus Prime_ : Megatron said it like an invocation, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m supposed to save Cybertron, but I, I’ve seen the images and I obviously couldn’t save it before and now?” He trembled, “The last thing I remember was receiving Megatron’s message about the Council audience and then…I woke up here.”

He offlined his optics, “Trion, I don’t know what to _do_.” 

A stretch of silence, and then Alpha Trion spoke, “Do you remember the day I had you help me organize those old datapads, the ones containing the myths of the Primes?”

“Of course,” his archivist’s processor pinpointed the data in a nanoclick. “Most of them were fragmented and corrupted, but the myth of Prima was still mostly intact, and the illustrations were all there.” He recalled running his fingers over the surface of the datapad, marveling at Prima’s shining face, at his gladiator’s body.

“And do you remember what I said about what it meant to be a Prime?”

“You said that it was not only about fighting prowess. That it was far more critical for a Prime to be a being of compassion.”

“And do you consider compassion to be a virtue you possess?”

Orion didn’t answer right away. He turned the word over in his processor, letting it resonate through him. Shards of memory rose to the surface, the darkness of the mines, the glowing optics of bots who had never seen sun or starlight, the gladiatorial scrapheaps of those slaughtered for the amusement of the masses, in Kaon, in Iacon. He recalled his grief, his steel-strong determination that somehow he could end this; that change was possible, if not utopia then at least peace and freedom for all.

He onlined his optics, “Yes.”

“Then you have never stopped being a Prime, Orion. You merely need to regain a few, superficial elements.”

He choked out a small laugh, “That’s one way of putting it.”

“I cannot promise everything will be alright, Orion, but do not lose faith.”

“Megatron didn’t tell me what sort of threat we’re facing.”

“Liege Maximo is on his way.”

“Primus, the Swarm.”

“Indeed.”

“Liege Maximo is a creature of legend. How can I possibly hope to face him?”

“Legend he may be, but Maximo is not immortal.”

Orion cycled his vents, “And you know for certain that he is returning? If we are discussing legends, I would have thought that Alchemist would have caught and destroyed him by now.”

“I thought for a time that Alchemist would be successful, but I fear not. As for my certainty, let us just say that I have always had…perceptions concerning these things. And it is my hope that you will not have to face Maximo alone,” there was something odd yet thoughtful in Alpha Trion’s tone.

Orion frowned, but didn’t press further. Trion had always kept his own council, interrogating him was guaranteed to get him less than nowhere, “How long do we have?”

“Megatron informs me that it will take ten solar cycles to get your space bridge operational,” Alpha Trion replied, his voice edged in suspicion. “We have little choice but to hope it will be soon enough; based on your current coordinates spaceflight will take far too long.”

Ten cycles, perhaps long enough to make some changes. His team must still be out there, a reality he could barely imagine: Ratchet surely, and others he had not yet met. Were they frightened, with their leader gone? Angry? If he reached out to them, would they be willing to listen? Would they look at the brands on his shoulder guards and call him traitor?

“Orion? Are you still there?” 

“Just thinking. Do you have any more information?”

“Only this: you will need the Key to gain access to Vector Sigma and the Core, to restore the Matrix. You had it in your possession last I know of, but Megatron said it was not on you when you came aboard. Someone on your team may have it.”

“I was planning on making contact with them.”

“Orion…be careful. This may feel new to you, but there are millennia of war between the Autobots and the Decepticons. The well of pain and hatred is very deep.”

“And you, Trion? Did you ever pick a side?”

A slight hesitation, “It is not my place to be involved in faction conflict. That is something to be hammered out between the younger generations.”

“Hundreds of megavorns and you haven’t lost your habit of speaking in riddles?”

“Still as impertinent as ever, I see.”

Orion gave a low chuff of amusement before sobering, “I will try to tread carefully.”

“Orion,” he waited, straining for some last pearl of wisdom. “I have faith in you. Good luck.”

Swallowing back vague disappointment, he replied, “Thank you, Trion. I suspect that I will need it.”

A soft static hiss and then silence, the glow of his own optics reflected in the blank mask of Soundwave’s face. He allowed his vents to cycle slowly and focused his attention on the silent bot before him.

“If you’re willing, Soundwave, I’m going to need some information.”

 

Trencher stared numbly at the solid, impassive doors of the medbay. Locked down tight for offshift cycle; required a medic or officer’s code to open them. And behind them…

He laid a hesitant hand on the cold metal, as though he could sense something beyond the aching silence.

As silent as Drop-Tank’s comm had been during his mission; as silent as it remained.

_I shouldn’t be here. Not our way to get involved, slag it, but I…_

His spark twisted within him, stretching, straining. _Let me see, just a moment, let me know—_

As if in answer to his thoughts, the doors divided beneath his fingers. Startling back, he narrowly avoided crashing into the mech barreling out of the medbay, the medic’s voice chasing him briefly before they slammed shut once more, “Get a move-on, fly-boy, don’t need you cluttering up the place.” Trencher wheeled, gyros unbalanced before claws caught and steadied him and he looked up into Traction’s glowing visor.

The other mech released him as though he’d been electrocuted. For a long moment they stared at each other. Traction’s chassis was hatched with silver welding lines, some of them not even fully set.

“You, Sandblaster said—” Trencher rebooted his vocalizer and tried again. “You’re still a half-processor glitch, but…thank you.”

A brief, uncomfortable silence, “Don’t mention it, dimspark.” The insult lacked its usual sting. Traction hesitated, as though he wanted to say something more, but then he brushed past Trencher with a brusque, “Take care of yourself.”

He stared up at the blank doors.

_I should go. There’s no point in me being here, won’t know anything until next cycle._

He still couldn’t make his feet move.

Surrendering, he crouched, tucking himself in the small recession of the entryway, the vertical flanges of his shoulder guards clinking against the metal, and rested his head on his knees.

The darkness of the corridor and the distant hum of the ship’s engines were soothing, but recharge was nothing more than a distant, passing thought. Nightcycle crawled on.

The rhythmic clank of metal startled him from his vigil; footsteps, heavy and deliberate, and nearly upon him.

He went rigid, a chill passing through his spark. Spend enough time on the _Nemesis_ and you got to know the sounds of the various officers coming pretty quick. There was only one bot with a tread like that. 

Trembling, he peered upwards.

Megatron regarded him coolly, the crimson glow of his optics bright in the dim corridor. A wave of terror swept across Trencher, coupled with the irrational desire to offline his visors, as though cutting visual feed would render him somehow invisible to that terrible gaze.

Megatron didn’t speak, but as he scanned Trencher’s face faint recognition flickered in his optics. His head tilted in consideration.

Trencher couldn’t entirely hold back his flinch as Megatron reached, but then the huge clawed hand bypassed him and he heard the clack and beep of buttons somewhere above his head.

The medbay doors slid open.

For a moment he was frozen, processor struggling to comprehend this, this _impossibility_ , but then the sharp, opportunistic part of him that had kept him functioning in the vorns before Cybertron went dark kicked him and he scooted into the shelter of the medbay.

Struggling to his feet, he glanced towards the other mech.

Should he say thank you?

But Megatron was already gone, and the doors slid shut.

The medbay was dark and silent but for the low throb of mech systems in stasis. Narrow enough that he could stand in the center and catch the identifying brush of their energy fields. Four berths occupied: Transonic, Scalar, Power Train and…

Reaching out, he traced the jigsaw patchwork of Drop-Tank’s chassis, never quite allowing his fingers to touch. Down, across and up towards the shoulder guards; the off-color shade of the fragment proclaiming it newly installed.

The berth was too small for two, even a runt like him. He sank down, crouching and bracing against the metal supports. Reaching up, he grasped one limp hand, squeezing the unresponsive fingers tight.

Cycles crawled by, the quiet thrum of ship’s sounds fading out of his attention. He counted the click of his chronometer and the swish of his fuel pump.

Nine breems before onshift cycle, long, clawed fingers twitched against his.

“Trencher?” the voice was muzzy from forced stasis and puzzled.

He gripped a little tighter and didn’t look up, his voice a hoarse whisper “If you ever do that to me again, you Pit-spawned, half-processor _glitch_ , I’ll dig you out of the scrap heap and deactivate you myself.”

Affection flickered along Drop-Tank’s energy field and his fingers squeezed back.

 

Megatron had carefully not permitted himself to think on the probability that his quarters might be empty when he returned to them and yet, as the doors parted and revealed Orion still seated upon the berth, Megatron found that some small tension loosened in him.

The doors hissed closed behind him, “I thought you might have left.”

Orion favored him with a weary look, “Was that what I did last time?” He shook his head, “Never mind, I can guess well enough.” He indicated the space beside him, “Please sit.”

Megatron did so, and they sat in silence for several long clicks.

“So now you know.”

“Most of it, I believe. Soundwave was very helpful in filling the gaps.” Orion angled his head, glancing sidelong at him, “You always did have a quick temper.”

“I believed you had betrayed me, become a puppet of the Council.”

Orion sighed, “I’m still not sure what to make of the Primacy, even the offer of it seems far too unreal, but did you truly believe I would have forsaken the cause for a taste of power? Do you think so little of me?”

He felt a small flare of satisfaction at Orion’s words: _the cause_ , as though he were a part of it once more, but then he frowned, “I did not know what to think at the time. I saw my revolution disregarded, my words dismissed for more palatable ones. Even standing at their very feet the Council could not, would not hear me, so I vowed to give them something they could no longer ignore.”

“At the cost of millions of lives? The Council is, was, a pack of self-important bureaucrats, but we could have worked with them.”

“Do you truly believe that? The Council cared for nothing save maintaining the status quo. Any changes we attempted to enact through their channels would have been twisted, sterilized, defanged in all the ways that matter.”

Bright blue optics fixed on his, “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

He had no answer to offer.

Orion rubbed his hand across his face, “Well it’s good to know that this hasn’t changed at least.”

“You have always been stubborn and idealistic to a fault.”

“Funny, I could say the same of you.”

Megatron smiled, a rictus of amusement, “We did make quite a pair.”

Orion looked suddenly stricken.

“What is it?” 

“Did, past tense,” Orion hung his head and laughed, an uneasy, humorless sound, “It’s so easy to forget.”

It went against his entire nature to be sentimental, but he could not help the twitch of his claws, an unfamiliar urge to reach out, to comfort, “It has been a long time since we have met in anything other than battle.”

Orion turned over his hands, examining them, flexing the fingers, “I’m armed, aren’t I? I’ve never wielded a weapon.”

“You’re quite skilled.” His face was newly repaired, but sensors itched in psychosomatic reaction and he muttered darkly “And rather creative.”

“And when I am…restored? Will we go back to that?”

He reflected upon Optimus’s rage as they clashed on the volcanic plain, dark energon raining upon them like ash, “I do not know.”

“You said you would not work with the Council, but the Council is gone.”

It was not a question, but he responded anyway, “Yes.”

“Will you work with me?”

He met the other bot’s optics, clear and blue and determined, and for a moment he could not tell if it was Orion or Optimus he saw within them, the disciple he had loved or the enemy he had respected. 

“Yes.”


End file.
